Epictetus on Friendship 2

. . . 'How is this?' a man may say; I am foolish, and yet love my child. 

I am surprised indeed that you have begun by making the admission that you are foolish. For what are you deficient in? Can you not make use of your senses? Do you not distinguish appearances? Do you not use food which is suitable for your body, and clothing and habitation? Why then do you admit that you are foolish?

It is in truth because you are often disturbed by appearances and perplexed, and their power of persuasion often conquers you; and sometimes you think these things to be good, and then the same things to be bad, and lastly neither good nor bad; and in short you grieve, fear, envy, are disturbed, you are changed.

This is the reason why you confess that you are foolish. And are you not changeable in love? But wealth, and pleasure and, in a word, things themselves, do you sometimes think them to he good and sometimes bad? And do you not think the same men at one time to be good, at another time bad? And have you not at one time a friendly feeling toward them and at another time the feeling of an enemy? And do you not at one time praise them and at another time blame them?

'Yes; I have these feelings also.' Well then, do you think that he who has been deceived about a man is his friend? 'Certainly not.'

And he who has selected a man as his friend and is of a changeable disposition, has he good-will toward him? 'He has not.'

And he who now abuses a man, and afterward admires him? 'This man also has no good-will to the other.' . . .

—Epictetus, Discourses 2.22, tr Long

We may not always like admitting that we are fools, but we like it even less if we are asked to think that our foolishness hinders our capacity to love. Surely I may love my family and friends, even when my thinking is off?

I hardly think that Epictetus is assuming any malice, but he still insists that our ability to express and act with any true good will is directly related to our awareness of what is right.

How many times has our power to do good for our friends depended upon a good or bad decision? Again, we may somehow want what is good, but we can hardly do it when we don’t first understand it.

I can begin with something not nearly as personally uncomfortable. It was once my intention to help my family by personally fixing a quirky appliance that had been causing us problems for months. I thought it best to surprise them with a newly restored device, and I was certain this would save us the repair costs, make everyone’s life easier, and spread joy throughout the land.

Everything seemed to be going well at first, but in the end my attempt at doing right went horribly wrong. I didn’t quite understand the inner workings of the beast, and my efforts simply caused us more problems, more money, and more frustrations. I was fortunate to be forgiven, but I certainly learned my lesson.

I will only quickly gloss over a similar fiasco, where we thought we could easily manage grooming a longhaired cat.

I can now morally dig a little deeper. Even when I have convinced myself that I acted with a desire to do right, I have often caused great grief and pain for others through lazy or selfish judgment. I allowed a false appearance of the good to overcome the real apprehension of the good.

How often have I told that little lie to supposedly save myself an inconvenience, only to find I have hurt someone more than if I had spoken with honesty and kindness? How often have I treated one person with grave disrespect in order to win the respect of another? How often have I laughed in ridicule, while pretending it was all in good fun?

Even with the appearance of the best of intentions, we allow our impressions, our changeable instincts and feelings, to get the better of us. And we do this out of a foolish ignorance. I need only think how surrendering to my frustration or anger has led me to hate instead of love.

Changing my standard of love as feelings or circumstances change can hardly be considered friendship. It can’t even really be ‘good’ will, if I’m not grasping what is good to begin with.

In the end, I don’t think I’ve ever managed to love someone by deceiving, defrauding, or rejecting.

Written on 2/2002

Image: Hermann Kern, "Good Friends" (1904)